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Read All About It:
Ten Terrific Newspaper Lessons


Lesson Planning ChannelTen lessons to help you integrate the newspaper into your classroom curriculum. Included: Activities that involve students in interviewing a local newspaper reporter, creating editorial cartoons, comparing newspapers, and much more!

Today, Education World offers ten activities to help teachers integrate the newspaper and the news into their curriculum. So start the presses -- and the lessons! A brief description of each lesson is provided below. (Appropriate grade levels for each activity are provided in parentheses.) Click on any lesson headline for a complete teaching resource!

Report on a Reporter
Students invite a local newspaper reporter to speak to the class and write a newspaper-style article about the visit. (Grades 3-5, 6-8, 9-12)

Front Page News
Students compare and contrast front-page stories from two local or state newspapers. (Grades 6-8, 9-12)

Editorial Cartoons
Students create editorial cartoons about topics in the news. (Grades 9-12)

Headline News
Students create stories using words cut from newspaper headlines. (Grades 3-5, 6-8, 9-12)

Classified Ads of the Future
Students brainstorm jobs people might have in the future and write classified ads for those jobs. (Grades 3-5, 6-8, 9-12)

Catchy Captions
Students write captions for pictures cut from newspapers and then match the real captions to the pictures. (Grades K-2, 3-5)

Cutting Costs With Coupons
Students clip coupons for food items, create a menu using those items, and add up the total savings. (Grades 3-5, 6-8)

Johannes Gutenberg and the Printing Press
Students use library or online resources to create time lines on the life of Johannes Gutenberg and tell the impact his invention, the printing press, had on the development of newspapers. (Grades 6-8, 9-12)

Language Arts Lesson Plan
Students use a variety of synonyms to write headlines and articles that resemble a model article. (Grades 3-5)

Exploring a Newspaper
Students learn about the parts of a newspaper and identify the main idea of a newspaper article. (Grades 3-5)

 

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Messages & Meanings: A Guide to Understanding Media
This unit from The School Zone: Newspapers in Education (NIE) Curricula and Lesson Plans offers a host of activities to help students in grades 6 through 12 access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate media messages.

 

Read More About It!

The following stories from the Education World archive will provide additional resources for integrating current events and the newspaper into your classroom curriculum:

Ten Great Activities: Teaching With the Newspaper
Ten terrific classroom activities that use the newspaper to teach all sorts of valuable skills, including reading and writing for meaning, map reading, media literacy, sequencing, word meaning, and math.

Twenty-Five Great Ideas for Teaching Current Events
Looking for ways to work news into your classroom curriculum? Check out these great ideas for connecting current events to all subjects.

It's News to Me: Teaching Kids About the Newspaper
Explore six great sites that will help you teach about the newspaper -- before you start teaching with it! Included are seven original ideas for teaching students about the newspaper.

Extra! Extra! Eight Great Web Sites Connect News to Your Curriculum
Discover eight great sites that will help you challenge students to look beyond the news! Also included are six online news quizzes for students of all ages.

Great Sites for Teaching About ... Election 2008
Education World highlights ten news sites that are among the best on the Web for teaching about Election 2008.
 


 

Lois Lewis
Education World®
Copyright © 2010 Education World

 

 

Originally published 10/09/2000
Last updated 09/17/2010